Speak. Louder.

The Label.

Finally I’m on the road to getting the help I need, and it has come at the right time, just as my life has fallen apart in front of my eyes. I’ve lost my home, my family, my relationship. Almost lost my brother. It’s just me, my daughter, a few binbags of my stuff and a temporary interchangable roof over my head.

They have tried me with Seroquel (quetiapine) 200mg in the evening. I’m still taking the Sertraline along with it (in the mornings). Again, the med change came at exactly the right time – I’ve had a week off work and no daughter to keep an eye on whilst she went away on holiday, and all I seem to have done is sleep.

The seroquel makes me drowsy, confused, my dreams are mixing in with my realities and blending in to one confusing river of time. I feel like I have little control over my limb movements and my tongue sometimes gets confused when I speak – I slur my words. I feel like an outsider trapped in a hosts body, with its eyes as a window I look through to an unfamiliar world. I still get the bout of uncontrollable hyper energy at night right before I take the next dose, the type of energy that makes me feel like my hands are on fire when I type… But what do feel like I have control over, is my emotions. They seem more detatched, like I can just reach in to my soul and grab the most appropriate one for the situation. The medication change has made me realise how intense my emotions were beforehand, and how on this earth did I manage to (barely) get my with them taking over my life like they did?

For the first time in what feels like a lifetime of pure torture, I feel a sense of… well, freedom. I’m not a prisoner of my emotions anymore. I can deal with the odd bit of anxiety which I remember to be normal – the Bipolar anxiety however.. well pat me on the back and give this girl a medal. Over a year of sufferring and I didnt cave in. I pushed and I give all my fight against it.

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One thought on “The Label.”

600mg/day here and I can tell you that eventually the side effects you’re talking about lessen significantly. Most of the time I can push on after taking the 600 in the evening for a few hours. Sometimes I find myself in that slackjawed state you’ve aptly described but it is the exception rather than the rule now.

Stick with the Seroquel – it’s saved my life. And should you ever get concerned about feeling ‘flat’ without your hypomania/mania – remember that addiction to mania is the leading cause of people going off their meds and getting into trouble. Mania, just like any other addiction, is difficulty to resist and very damaging. Giving into your illness to enjoy mania will ultimately lead to insanity or an early grave, more often than not!